I don’t have long, so I’m sitting here talking into my phone in the dark before the battery runs out. The head of Mr. Childs is sitting in the passenger seat next to me. I’m keeping it with me for now. It’s a reminder that I’m not nuts. That it’s all real. The rancid smell coming from it is keeping me sharp. Its eyes are staring at me right now. I can’t hear it talk to me anymore; I ruptured both of my ear drums with a compressor two days ago. It was the only way to keep my head on straight. The sound they make when they realize that you can see them makes you question everything in your head. It’s another way of control. They’re all about control.
Mr. Childs, I can’t hear you anymore.But you can hear me. I ripped off your jaw didn’t I? I realized when I first tried to record this that he was coming through on the voice to text, so I ripped off his lower jaw. It’s just me and whoever is reading this.
They’ve got the cops looking for me right now. They’re saying I’m a murderer. A madman who’s been killing indiscriminately. Men and women; I don’t think they can get into children. I think it’s because they haven’t been worn down enough; they’re not angry or disillusioned enough. But the things I’m killing aren’t people. They may look that way to everyone out there right now, but by the time I’m finished, they won’t. I’m going to leave a trail littered with the broken bodies of these things that’s going to be impossible to ignore. Just watch me. I’ve got their blood all over me, a red glowing sludge that goes everywhere when you crack open the heads of the people you thought you knew. You’ll all see it when I’m done, because I’m going to spill it by the bucket. Three days ago, I was just like anyone else, but now I’m a fucking savage fighting for whatever is left of our world…or uh…maybe I am crazy…what do you think Mr. Childs?
Our whole town began to see them. People we had known for years. People we trusted. That explosion in the mine. We think the sound of it woke us all up. All of us began to see it in their eyes. The things that moved in their eyes. They wiped most of us out in two days. I think I’m the only one left. I wonder what they’re saying on the news… maybe that the town was lost due to a wildfire and most people are reported missing. Well I started the damn fire myself. The “people” had been missing for a while. They were taken over. I don’t know how long ago. But if it’s happening all the way up here, you can be damn sure that all of us everywhere are being surrounded by them. We’re being…assimilated…no that’s not right…we’re being…tenderized…prepared…gimme a second here…got to light one more cigarette before I jump in…that’s better…not like I got that much longer anyway. Cancer can eat a bag of dicks when it comes to getting me. So…
The explosion just rocked through the whole valley. Everyone’s ears were ringing. I was in Doctor Kearny’s office. I’ve been having mind splitting headaches for the last month and I finally went in to see her. She was using that little light to peer into my left ear when the explosion went off. Both of us hit the floor holding our ears. The ringing lasted for at least thirty seconds. I helped Dr. Kearny up when I was able to get my legs underneath me. She smiled at me and then I saw them in her eyes. I shook my head because there was no way that what I was seeing was real. But when I opened my eyes again, they were still there. Little things; like… blue worms… they were more moving in her eyes.
She asked me if I was ok. I didn’t say anything. My head was pounding. I thought I was seeing things. I left the office with her right behind me. We both walked outside to see what the hell happened. There was a large plume of smoke coming from the direction of the mine just outside of town. Everyone was out in the street looking toward it for a minute and then when we heard the scream.
Marilyn Baker was screaming and pointing at her neighbor Jack. Jack was looking around with a worried look on his face. Marilyn started screaming that he had something in his eyes. I couldn’t really see his eyes. He was across the street from me. That’s when over half the people in the street began looking at each other in silence, and then they started that scream. That sound that scrambles your brains.
There were only a handful of us on the street who put our hands to their ears. Everyone else started bearing down on us. They grabbed Marilyn first and pushed her into the hardware store. Then they all started screaming. I felt Dr. Kearny’s hands on my back; her nails digging into my shoulders. She spun me around like I was a child. Just no effort at all. Her eyes had gone completely gray and I saw the blue worms moving in the cloudiness of them. Something was in her mouth while she screamed at me. Something like feelers or…shit I don’t know how to describe them…I’ve seen so many of them now, you’d think I’d be able to. The sounds of all the screaming were making me dizzy and I could see that several people were running down the street toward me, while I saw that others were dragging people inside the shops that littered Main Street. Dr. Kearny was trying to pull me back into her office, and I didn’t want to think about what would happen if I was dragged in there.
I took my hands away from my ears and punched her in the face as hard as I could. It was just enough to make her let go. I started running towards my truck. It was chaos. I thought I wasn’t going to make it. There’s something in those screams. Something that tells you to give in and let them have you. The feeling of despair…it gets in your bones.
I threw open the door to my truck and tried to get the hell out of there. I turned the dial on my radio as far as it would go. All I was getting was static, but it was enough to drown out those screams so I could think clearly. It’s like I could see clearly too. Seven folks who I’ve known most of my life were running toward my truck. I won’t say their names, because at one time they were good people…hell they were people…I don’t know when they were changed into those things, but…anyway…
There’s a place not too far out of town where a bunch of us would go smoke or ditch class when we were in high school. For some reason, I thought I’d just go there and try to figure things out.
My phone wasn’t working. Even 911 wasn’t working. When I pulled into the old hatchery parking lot, there were a few other folks there too. Guess we all had the same idea. We shared our stories; they were all about the same. But then Tim Mcdonald came stumbling out of the trees. He’d been down at the Fred Meyers when it all happened. He’d been hiding in the back room and he’d stuffed some paper towels in his ears to keep from going mad. What he told us…we knew we were fucked…
He made it on up to the office somehow and he could see people being dragged to the front of the store and hogtied with rope and wires or whatever could be found. He said the screaming stopped and they started talking to each other. Talking english, but the voices of the people he knew were a little different than they used to be. The people were talking about the explosion…having no idea what it was, but whatever it was knocked something out of whack for them, not us. He said they were talking about some kind of frequency being disrupted that allowed us to see…and that they had to isolate the incident…
Tim said a bunch of other shit, but I’m runnin’ out of battery. So all those real people who were tied up at the front of the store, Tim said they were pulled to their knees. He said Dr. Kearny came in like a storm and started yelling that they had to do it quick, but that it might not take. I can’t remember what Timmy said, but the next thing he knows, a bunch of people are coming in carrying what look like ice chests. They laid those ice chests down in front of all the people who were tied up, and then they opened them.
Tim said he watched as the people’s mouths were forced open by two of the gray eyed things and then Dr. Kearny started pulling out these cocoons from the ice chests. She’d break them open and these gray bastards came out. They look like some kind of jellyfish…bug things…Dr. Kearny would hold up those little bastards and cram them into the mouths of the people that were tied up and they’d claw their way inside the heads of all those poor people.
He said the people were just gurgling and trying to fight back, but it was no use…the things got inside their head. And then their eyes started to bulge out…because they were being pushed out.
Tim had a good look at Kelly Howard’s face while it happened. He said Kelly’s right eye just bulged for a bit, and she was trying to scream, but no sound was coming out. The right eye popped and fluid went dribbling down her face. He said the next thing he knew, her eye was… he said deflated, and then moved out of the way, and one of those gray eyes with the blue worms in it took its place. He said he watched it happen to everyone they had in there. After that, all the ropes and cords were taken off and those people, or whatever they had become, and they all stood up and started talking like the others. Tim said that the Doctor worried that the bodies weren’t ready, but they had to risk it because we could all see them now. He got the feeling that we have to be broken down…hopeless and aimless before our bodies are ripe enough for them to take over. I don’t know if that’s true…but if it is that’s pretty fucked up.
We knew we had to go back to town and try to fight. Needless to say, everybodies gone now but me. Most of them weren’t stupid enough to deafen themselves, but I’ve never been accused of going only halfway with…damn…I’ve got no battery. I drove far enough out of town to get a signal. They shut everything down on us. I don’t really have any more time. They’re real. I’m going to show you all. Bullets do nothing. Fire, blunt force, or fire. They hide in the heads of the hosts. If I fail, you’re probably never going to hear anything about this. It’ll all be covered up or explained away. Just another nutbag on the internet.
If you do hear about it they’ll probably say it’s a hoax…that I’m some kind of madman or some shit like that…but they’re all around us. Turning us against each other. Once your eyes are opened, they can’t be closed. I got to get this thing uploaded while I still can.
Good luck.